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Saturday, August 31, 2013

A Showdown in Ink and a Man for Breakfast

The Nugget mourns the cowboys

Battles were fought more often
with ink than with lead in the Tombstone, AZ, of the 1880s.

The showdown at the O.K. Corral
reignited a running battle between the town’s two major newspapers that had its
origins in the animosities of the Civil War. The Tombstone Epitaph backed the Northern-oriented,
Republican business interests and the Earps, while the Tombstone Nugget backed
the Southern-sympathizing, Democratic rancher and “cowboy” faction (“cowboy”
then being a term that referred to a red-sashed band of violent cattle
thieves).

The Nugget was owned and edited by
boyish-looking, blond Harry W. Woods, who also served as undersheriff. A former
territorial legislator in Tucson, Woods had once jumped out a window to prevent
lawmakers from having a quorum on a bill he opposed. Woods was an energetic
politician but not much of a lawman, and had shamed himself throughout Arizona
when he either ineptly or corruptly permitted the escape of Luther King, a
stagecoach robber who had been tracked and arrested by the Earps.

After the Earps and Doc Holliday
fought and killed cowboys Billy Clanton and Tom and Frank McLaury near the O.K.
Corral on Oct. 26, 1881, the Nugget mourned their loss, and townspeople who had
initially backed the Earps became increasingly suspicious of them. The Nugget
helped get the Earps and Holliday charged with murder, but the prosecution’s
case crumbled at the preliminary hearing and charges were dismissed.

Newspapers of the 19th
century rarely let fact interfere with partisanship. The Epitaph reported every
cowboy crime in the county, while the Nugget accused the Epitaph of driving
away business investment by over-reporting crimes committed by the faction the
Nugget backed. The Nugget’s frequent references to baldness were shots at
Tombstone Mayor John P. Clum, who was nearly murdered by cowboys in a wild
stagecoach ride that was apparently an assassination attempt.

The Nugget was mocked by the San
Francisco Report newspaper for its maudlin “drooling and driveling over the
three murderous young thieves who were executed in such and inexpensive and
timely manner.”

The Report dubbed the Nugget “the
Daily Cowboy,” a nickname that delighted the editor at the Epitaph. The Nugget,
in turn, helped hang the nickname “the Daily Strangler” on the Epitaph,
accusing the paper of supporting anti-cowboy vigilantism.

The Nugget accidentally gave
Tombstone a nickname that stuck — “Hell Dorado,” a pun that connected the
violent mining town to the legendary riches of El Dorado. And the Epitaph,
republishing a remark originally made in the Harshaw Bulletin, popularized a
phrase that became Tombstone’s historic legacy — the town that “(has) a man for
breakfast occasionally.”

The expression was a way of saying
that Tombstone citizens would awaken in the morning to find a freshly murdered
corpse on their streets. While that wasn’t strictly true, given the fact that
most of the killings were committed in the remoter parts of Cochise County, it
was true enough.

Sources:
“Inventing Wyatt Earp: His Life and Many Legends," Allen Barra; “Wyatt
Earp: The Life Behind the Legend,” Casey Tefertiller

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About Dan Hagen

"This trenchant commentary, which makes the big syndicated "on-the-other-hand" columnists look like Goebel Gerbils, is why I still believe that real journalism gets done most often at the personal newspaper level. Thanks for sharing this. Dan follows one of journalism's proudest traditions!"
— Paul McMasters, the First Amendment ombudsman for the Freedom Forum, on Dan Hagen’s newspaper columns

Why Odin's ravens?

Perched on the shoulders of the Norse god Odin are the pet ravens Huginn and Muninn, whose names mean “Thought” and “Memory.” At Odin’s bidding, they fly across the face of the world and bring him knowledge. In the 13th century Poetic Edda, Odin reveals that he fears that they may not return from their daily flights. He has pampered his pets by rewarding them with the ability to speak, and it’s truth that they tell, even though the Raven is, of course, a Trickster.

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Copyright

I love crows and ravens for their wisecracking voices and for that black-on-black gleam of sagacity in their eyes. They figure things out. They see us. They know us for what we are, which is why they keep a wary distance but remind us, with their taunts, that they are not overly impressed.